Twice Upon a Piano
by MementoLuceat
Summary: Elliot stared down at the tickets in his hand-tickets, plural-and wanted to smack himself. Hard. In the shin, or somewhere equally painful, because now that raised the trying question of: Which "random person" was he supposed to give this extra ticket to? [Slightly bittersweet reincarnation/100 years later fluff.]


**AN:** This is my gift for yatogummi on Tumblr, as part of the 2015 Pandora Hearts Secret Santa. Best served with a liberal dose of feelsy piano music!

* * *

One-hundred seventy-three dollars. _One-hundred seventy-three dollars_. That was almost seven hardcover books, or eleven paperbacks. A thousand or so pages of literature.

 _Wasted_.

" _It's just a ticket, Elliot_."

"An _extra_ ticket." Teeth clenched, he dragged out his next words with deliberate emphasis. "Worth an extra _one-hundred seventy-three_ dollars."

" _C'mon_ ," Oz wheedled, and Elliot could just imagine the careless, air-headed brat draped over a sofa, several miles of telephone wire removed from the crisis at hand, and therefore incapable of grasping the gravity of the situation. " _You could at least not mope all day about it. It's bad for your health_."

"Says the one down with the flu," Elliot sniped back. A chain of sneezes sounded from the phone, followed by loud nose-blowing, and the momentary smug satisfaction dissipated as he remembered he was supposed to be grumpy.

" _Well, 'scuse me for caring._ "

The whine was distorted with a nasal twang, and Elliot cringed as Oz proceeded to hack up a lung. His flu must've been worse than he thought, because irritation was not within Oz's spectrum of emotion, under normal circumstances. An irritated Oz was just...unnatural. Unnervingly so. Elliot floundered for the best response. "Uh, just-just take your medicine, all right?"

And immediately regretted it as Oz seemed to flip a switch. " _Oooo, is that concern I hear?_ "

 _Crap._ Elliot's brain scrambled for a way to curb the onslaught of merciless teasing he knew would follow, drew a blank, and fell back to his default reaction: to scream "Shut up!" at the top of his lungs.

Which, if anything, only encouraged Oz. " _I knew it, you're just a huge teddy bear on the inside! You just don't want to admit it, like how you don't want to admit you feed all the stray cats by-_ "

"Finish that sentence and I-" A couple of people nearby gave Elliot strange looks, and he flushed, lowering his voice to an angry whisper. "I will _end_ you."

" _But you're too much of a softie to do that_ ," Oz sang.

"Sh-shut up! You know what? I don't need your advice anyway! I'll just give the extra ticket to some random person, thanks for nothing and bye!" Elliot jammed his thumb into the "hang up" button and shoved his phone back into his pocket. Then froze as what he finished processing what he'd just said.

 _Oh, hell_.

For what must've been the tenth time that day, Elliot wanted to smack himself. Hard. In the shin, or somewhere equally painful. He was pretty sure that if there was an award for World's Biggest Idiot, he'd have won that in a landslide. For a moment, he wondered if he'd messed up big-time in a past life, and his karma was finally catching up to him.

Nah. That couldn't be it. He was just a complete moron.

Illogical contemplations about a cycle of life that may or may not exist aside, he needed to do _something_ about the extra ticket; if he came back from the concert with it unused, Oz would never let him hear the end of it, especially after he'd-in some brief spell of complete irrationality-blurted out that he would just hand it off to some stranger.

First of all, who would he even give it to? No one else he knew besides Oz really appreciated classical music, and Oz was stuck home sick, so that was out of the question. And even though the people around the concert hall would be more likely to be interested, they probably would already have their own tickets. Not to mention… Elliot inwardly despaired as he scanned the crowd streaming into the hall, and realized that everyone there was at least in their thirties. Did no one his age comprehend the magnificence of the orchestra? As the time ticked closer to the start of the concert, his prospects looked increasingly grim, and Elliot was about ready to resign himself to at least two weeks of endless ribbing from the hellish little devil known as Oz.

And then, as if by some cosmic deus ex machina, he spotted from the corner of his eye a dark-haired boy lingering about, hands entrenched in the pockets of his coat and his gaze fixed on the concert hall. A peculiar sense of familiarity tugged at Elliot, as though-strangely enough-he'd seen that boy somewhere before. But that couldn't be right; those eyes were such a distinct purple-black that if he'd seen them once, he'd never be able to forget them. Something deep within him was whispering words, perhaps names, perhaps places, perhaps something else, but a hazy shroud muffled their sounds.

Before he knew it, he'd marched up to the boy and thrust out the ticket with a hastily prepared, half-baked line: "Hey, I accidentally bought an extra ticket, so take this!"

The boy blinked, stared at the ticket, and then squinted at him. Elliot fidgeted under his scrutinizing gaze as the seconds dragged on without a sound; the boy opened his mouth, then snapped it shut, and stared at the ticket some more.

 _Stop staring and say something, damn it!_ Elliot wanted to scream, and another part of him continued to chant the despairing mantra of _bad idea bad idea bad idea-_ and he couldn't even think of a way to extract himself from this situation!

Finally, after what felt like an hour, the other boy deigned to bestow some shred of mercy on Elliot, and broke the painful silence. "You must be pretty lonely."

The words smashed into Elliot like a train, and his cheeks burned as he scrambled to dig himself out of the deepening hole. "I-no-I'm-"

Oblivious to Elliot's sputtering, he continued. "That ticket's got to be worth almost two-hundred dollars, and you actually bought an extra one? You're such a weirdo." A sly grin spread across his face. "Unless, say, you were going to take your significant other out to this concert, but got dumped, leaving you with an extra ticket. And now, to assuage the pangs of your shattered heart, you're desperately seeking some sort of company that will fill the gaping void left by your ex-lover, hm? It's okay, I won't judge."

 _Oh my god. Just kill me now._

The boy must've been a mind reader, because he laughed, a soft but natural sound. "I was just kidding-you really are a weirdo. I suppose you're a nice weirdo, though. And a bit lonely too." He took the ticket and offered a cheery smile. "Thanks! I'm Leo."

 _Leo_ … The name dredged up something from the recesses of his mind-books strewn over a worn floor, the laughter of children ringing in the air, sunlight painting old shelves, and-it was gone.

 _He's the one, the one who_ -who? Elliot didn't know, but it was _him_. His presence drained the tension from his frame, and words came to him easily, as if they'd been side-by-side all their lives. "Elliot. Thanks for the thirty most embarrassing seconds of my life, by the way. Note the sarcasm."

"Duly noted," Leo responded without missing a beat, his smile unwavering. "When's the concert starting?"

"Uh-ten minutes? We should hurry."

After some delicate maneuvering through the dense throngs of people, Elliot and Leo were safely settled in their seats. The latter tilted his chin towards the stage. "What's on the program?"

"The Lutwidge"- _the smell of crisp book pages, four hands across a piano_ -"Collection. Have you heard of it?"

"I'd have to be living under a rock to not have," Leo remarked dryly, propping his chin on a hand.

Elliot was tempted to shoot off a flippant "Maybe, for all I know", and Leo would retort with something along the lines of "Do I _look_ like it?" But that route would only lead to further embarrassment, because there really wasn't anything about Leo's appearance Elliot could nitpick at, so he settled for clearing his throat. "Anyway, this concert-since it's the hundredth anniversary of the Collection, they're performing an arrangement of its last two pieces!"

Leo leaned forward, his eyes wide. "Really, the two that are kept locked up? No one even knows their titles!"

"Exactly!" Elliot reclined back into the cushiony folds of his seat, and tilted his head up to trace the graceful contours of the aged ceiling. "You know… They say those pieces are off-limits because they 'carry an emotional significance'. So I've always wondered, what sort of feelings could've been put in those pieces that no one's allowed to perform or hear them?"

"I never took you to be the philosophical type." The flat look Elliot shot Leo didn't faze him-honestly, did anything ever? But then a contemplative look drew across Leo's face as he stared into the distance, seeing a different world. "A lot of love. Or pain. Or maybe both."

 _I'm sorry, Leo_ , was already on the tip of his tongue, but a lump lodged in his throat. In one brief, impossible moment, Elliot wanted to both punch Leo square in the face, and hug him and never let go; a lifetime of sorrow and joy flooded him, and Elliot felt _complete_ again, as though some half of him had been missing for the longest time.

"Elliot? You look like you're going to cry."

Leo's ( _my best friend-no, some guy I just met today-no, my other half_ ) voice jolted Elliot out of his reverie, and he blinked. There was the slightest hint of a concerned frown on Leo's face. Elliot rubbed at an eye, and stared at the wetness on his fingers. Tears...?

"Elliot?"

A breathless laugh escaped him. "I don't really know, I'm kind of sad, but I'm...really happy, too, because..." His throat closed up. _Because we're together again_.

If it hadn't been for the audience falling silent as lights washed over the stage, Elliot might've missed Leo's soft, tremulous whisper.

"I'm happy we're together again, too."

And the music began, the echoes of a time long since gone when golden lights dotted a sky like stars, when intertwined tragedy and hope waltzed within the pages of a story, and when two friends sat side by side and coaxed a piano to sing.


End file.
